Posted
by
Zonk
on Sunday April 06, 2008 @12:20AM
from the drones-what-can't-they-do dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A successful docking of the Automated Transfer Vehicle dubbed 'Jules Verne' occurred earlier this week. The first of its kind, the crewless ship reached orbit and lightly touched up against the international space station on Thursday. By now astronauts on the ISS will have opened its doors and begun air circulation in preparation of offloading the nearly 7.5 tons of fuel, oxygen, food, clothing and equipment they need to survive. The EU Space Agency sees this as a historic journey for the program: 'The Jules Verne, named after the visionary French science fiction author, is the first of a new class of station supply ships called Automatic Transfer Vehicles. The craft was built by the nations of the European Space Agency as one of Europe's major contributions to the international station. "The docking of the A.T.V. is a new and spectacular step in the demonstration of European capabilities on the international scene of space exploration," said Jean-Jacques Dordain, director general of the European Space Agency.'"

The Canadian robot manipulators! We've got tons of them! The arms on the space shuttles, the twin-armed contraption on the space station, numerous smaller manipulators on many rovers...

It's too bad any new ones won't be Canadian anymore with MDA selling out =( Not that MDA Space Missions / MD Robotics / Dynacs / SPAR were "all Canadian" to start with, but at least it had that "built here!" feeling to it.

Heh, actually the plan would be complete by having Canadian Robot Overlords both being welcomed by slashdotters and overseeing the Canadian Robot Manipulator hoards' reproduction/taking over the universe/???/profit functions.See, it's like a car, you have to have an ECM (in this case, the Canadian Robot Overlords) to coordinate the rest of the complex machinery. But that kind of thing is only likely in Soviet Russia, where Canadians make fun of YOU.

Which would win in a fight? The European robot transport or the Canadian robot manipulator?

I would have thought the more relevant question would be:One-use European robot transport vs Russian Soyuz spacecraft

IIRC, so far the Russians have been lifting the majority of supplies to the station, because the Shuttle hasn't been going up regularly. Not to mention they've been getting paid but the USA for the privilege.

I was a bit disappointed to read that Jules Verne would burn up in the atmosphere, since a proper replacement for the space shuttle is really long overdue, but I understand that the lack of a re-entry system makes the whole thing orders of magnitude cheaper and safer, and only people really need to return safely.

Spending money to get garbage safely down to earth is silly. We've got plenty of garbage down here already.

If NASA followed von Braun's strategy, by now we would have a permanent moon base already. Instead NASA went for a big-bang project, after initial success, scaled it down very quickly and abandoned everything for a flawed plan and left us with a shuttle which would truck stuff to nowhere. Now they have a place to go (ISS) but they are canceling the shuttle with no spacecraft to replace it. I wouldn't be this bitter at least they had something replacing it.

Europeans (inc. Russia) will have to step up and replace NASA when they completely abandon ISS in a couple of years and ATV is a step in this. The Chinese and Indians might come aboard pretty soon as well. The world will not need USA for space exploration any more and NASA's current plans are doomed with the budget cuts and everything - all it needs is a pretty failure in one of the first flights and that's it, USA won't have access to human spaceflight anymore - they hardly succeed with their current fleet of vehicles.

...left us with a shuttle which would truck stuff to nowhere. Now they have a place to go (ISS) but they are canceling the shuttle with no spacecraft to replace it.

The trouble with the STS is that its big selling point was as a shuttle to a future International Space Station. By the same token, the ISS' big selling point was that it could be built, manned, and supplied with the STS. They're both lackluster designs limited to a ridiculous LEO slot that's outlandishly costly to maintain. Really, they're BOTH white elephants.

The ESA has a low budget compared to the NASA. The major difference is that they do things slowly and step by step. They do one big project (like the ATV development), but a lot of research and engineering is done in smaller missions. And they try to use platforms. For example the Venus Express probe reused the design of Mars Express. They also have a lot "get things cheaper" projects. And they cancelled many expensive projects, which was seen as a set back for Europe at that time. For example the Hermes pr

Now they have a place to go (ISS) but they are canceling the shuttle with no spacecraft to replace it. I wouldn't be this bitter at least they had something replacing it.Um... take a look at the Orion spacecraft. This will be the replacement for the shuttle program. The shuttle program was started to help build and travel to the ISS. Now with the ISS out of the way NASA will realign for missions to the moon and mars, including plans for this moon base you seem to want. In fact test are underway in

Well, yeah, but by that logic we're a step closer to manned bases on Venus or faster-than-light travel. Those things were SF before ATV and they're SF now (and I maintain they will always be SF, but that's beside the point.) Likewise, asteroid mining is SF last week, this week, and next week. (In that case though it's not only the extreme technological difficulty of the task, it's that the whole process is utterly futile. If there were a solid gold asteroid it would still never be economic to go mine it.) A

Solar Power Satellites. Fossil fuels will diminish. And global climate will change. Energy will come from somewhere, and capturing energy from an unshielded thermonuclear reactor at a distance of 93 million miles might turn into a winning proposition. Then the choice is manufacturing on the ground and launching, or manufacturing in space, and then transfer to geosynchronous orbit.There are no permanent human settlements in the middle of the Gobi Desert because there are better places relatively nearby.

Solar power satellites, which are... drumroll... science fiction! When someone somewhere evem proposes (seriously) a proof-of-concept demonstration that such a thing would be possible, let alone practical,... I'm all ears. Until then, you're jus tpulling make-believe technological deus ex machinas out, waving them in the air and proclaiming they'll solve the problem.

There will be outposts and mining and manufacturing in space when it's better to do it there than here.

The Progress isn't even the first automated Soviet freighter, so, no, this is far from the first automated transport spacecraft. They even used some Russian parts. Typical ESA over-statement (or outright lie). Just the latest in a long line - "first ion thruster" (although theirs was a Russian design that had been in use for 20+years) and NASA and some commercial entities has also used them), "first 3-axis stabilized spacecraft to be operated without any gyro" (although numerous US missions have used gyrol

if you do not use gyros, then you have to use the thrusters. That means fuel. Worse, it WILL limit the lifetime. Of course, for ATV, it is probably not needed (limited lifetime in the firstplace, gyros on the space station), but overall, it would seem that directional gyros would more sense for a long lasting sats (or perhaps ion drive thrusters).

You could also use electromagnets and push against Earth magnetic field - though, in practice, you might have problems doing it as poorly controlled magnetic field might focus incoming charged particles in the wrong place..

..... Their terminal guidance and overall control appeared to have been *far* superior to the typical Soviet system. Much smoother and neater and apparently much finer control.

Perhaps this is what they were talking about -- As I remember it, the final approach of Progress was far from automated. If this new system is mostly or fully automated, then it does qualify for a first...

Kindly separate what some inaccurate media summary says and what the ESA itself states. Where exactly does ESA claim to have "the first automated transport spacecraft?". They say it is the first of its kind, i.e. one that navigates and docks fully automatically, which is neither a lie nor an overstatement. And quoting from the Smart-1 (probe with ion drive) site:

This was only the second time that ion propulsion has been used as a mission's primary propulsion system...

I haven't bothered checking your "first 3-axis stabilized spacecraft to be operated without any gyro" example but frankly I'm sure I'd not find an "outright lie" here or even a overstatement either.

Depends on how you interpret the meaning of the word "first of its kind". It is definitely not the first automated space craft, you are right. But this is probably not what was meant. In fact, the words "first of its kind do not even appear in the NY Times article, it is the words of the "anonymous reader" who submitted this to Slashdot.

The New York Times article states:"[It] is the first of a new class of station supply ships called Automatic Transfer Vehicles"

Progress IS the first of its ind. The ATV is roughly a large AND newer copy of it. Of course, that is because EU paid russia for the rights to see their tech and then figure out how to improve upon it based on 30+years of tech advancement.

I am happy to see EU getting more into space; ariane, vegas, a number of planetary probes, the modules used on the shuttle (of which that forms the ATV), and now the ATV. But USSR/Russia is the one that deserves the credit for first creating this. In fact, I am hoping t

With so much energy invested in boosting the transport into orbit, you'd think that they'd want to hold onto the materials once up there. They'd be very valuable in due course.Unfortunately the ISS is in too low an orbit for that, ie. a scrap yard at that low altitude would reenter pretty soon. The space station itself needs to be reboosted up periodically (a really daft design decision).

There's no reason why the transport couldn't boost itself much further out once it has delivered its cargo though. The

They actually use the transport to remove all of their rubbish. They can't just throw waste outside, that would present yet another orbital risk. So, they load everything into the supply module (Progress, ATV, or the new Japanese HTV which should get it's first launch next year), and then the supply module burns its engines to re-enter Earth's atmosphere and burning up.

In theory, waste can be used as projectiles for a mass driver. Ejecting the waste backwards at high velocity would simultaneously accelerate the station (to help maintain orbit) and decelerate the waste (causing it to fall back to Earth). In practice, this is probably rather inefficient.

Keep in mind that it is up to the/. editors to pick what interests THEM. As such, there is a bit of a built-in bias about what appears here.
10 years ago, on slashdot, this would have been posted right away. But I have noticed that a number of space articles tend to be posted later and later. I suspect that this has little to do with EU, and a lot more to do with less interest in space by younger folks. Hopefully, with spacex, bigelow, and even virgin, we will see this passion about space rekindled again.

If not, it will probably be re-kindled in about 6-7 years, when china puts a man on the moon, with the obvious intention of building a base there. Just as sputnik spurred America, I think that the realization that China has about 1.5 times the number of ppl working on their space program of what America had in total during the Apollo program will cause nations to re-think their priorities, and how to work together.

The full article doesn't say that this is a first. In fact, it contains the following sentence.

Only Russia has previously achieved a successful automated docking in space, Dr. Griffin said in a statement.

I wonder what kind of system the Russians were using and are still using? It took this long for others to catch up and, from the article once again, they had to use GPS and other systems. I'm sure the Russians had it much simpler.

With the Russian accident in mind, why do they still dock the same way ? From what i've read, a collision could, due to the size of the capsule could be catastrophic. Couldn't they make the capsule approach the space station in a parrallel course rather than heads on, than use the robotic arms or something equivalent to pull the capsule in ? of couse that would mean that they would have to redesign the capsule.

All of the future crafts with hook-ups on the American side will do just that. But that requires that the craft contain an arm. So that means that other dockable crafts will have to carry an arm. For example, if Bigelow choses to use the American approach, they will require an arm of some length (perhaps just long enough to reach the end of one BA-330). While it makes sense to use it on the ISS (cheap and all parts there already), it really does not make sense for other systems. Too expensive, though you c

Imagine two coplanar circular rings, of very slightly different diameter, with a common center. They're concentric. Tilt one slightly with respect to the other, retaining the common centering. The rings now cross at two diametrically opposed points.

Those rings represent non-coplanar orbits. Objects traveling along the two orbits appear to be in parallel course at widest separation, then they start coming together, collide, and start moving apart again.

The cheap way to do rendezvous is get the two spacecraft onto the SAME orbit, with some separation, and then GRADUALLY maneuver one of them to bring it closer. It is extremely touchy work. (This is why Project Gemini spent so much time learning how to rendezvous the Gemini spacecraft with the Agena target: they had to be able to do rendezvous to do the Apollo moon landings.)

Read "Carrying the Fire", by Mike Collins, for some interesting insight into the problem. (Mike Collins was Apollo XI Command Module Pilot.)

Don't be such a pedant. There's absolutely no reason why you can't fly a vehicle like the ATV on a near-miss course, and then do precisely what the grandparent suggested. As to why they do it one way or another, who knows, I'm not a rocket scientist, but neither are you.I'm sure the real ones have their reasons, probably having to do with the complexity of catching a passing cargo spaceship with the manipulator arm, or the mechanical stresses involved, or what-not. The two craft approach each other prett

Don't be such a pedant. There's absolutely no reason why you can't fly a vehicle like the ATV on a near-miss course, and then do precisely what the grandparent suggested.

Maybe they could, but it sounds incredibly dangerous. Near misses and different orbits imply a speed difference. To remove that speed difference, force needs to be applied. tons of things can go wrong. It's much safer to put both objects in the same orbit and approach gently.

In the realm of orbital maneuvre, it doesn't really matter where you approach it from. They're both travelling at almost exactly the same speed. It's best to just consider them as two floating objects in the vastness of space. The approach velocity is extremely small either way.
Capturing the capsule with a robotic arm might reduce the risk of catastrophic collision, which is probably quite small anyway. But that would probably open up a whole new bag of potential failure.